By Sara Toth Stub
Special to DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
JERUSALEM--Koor Industries Ltd. (KOR.TV), a unit of Israeli
conglomerate IDB Holding Corp.(IDBH.TV), said Thursday it has sold
its remaining shares in Credit Suisse Group (CS), which it will
partly use to pay off loans.
In August, IDB, Israel's largest conglomerate, said it would end
its investment program in Credit Suisse in order to pay off its
mounting debts.
Koor said it sold 3.68 million Credit Suisse shares on Thursday
for 110.5 million Swiss francs ($121.6 million), which will boost
its fourth-quarter net profit by 27 million shekels ($7.75
million). This follows Wednesday's sale of 4.9 million shares for
$161 million.
Koor said it would use a total of about $98 million from the
proceeds of Wednesday's and Thursday's sales to pay off loans to
Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.
Other sales of Credit Suisse shares in the final three months of
2013 will add ILS35 million to Koor's fourth-quarter net
profit.
At the peak of its investment in 2008, Koor owned more than 3%
of Credit Suisse.
Koor's parent, IDB Holding, has run into financial trouble in
the past few years as many of its investments sagged with the
global economic downturn. It currently owes its bondholders about
ILS1.7 billion and its bank debt stands at more than ILS300
million.
Due to the mounting debt situation and bondholders' requests, a
Tel Aviv court recently approved a deal that would take control of
IDB away from controlling shareholder and well-known Israeli
businessman Nochi Dankner, granting some shares to bondholders, and
the controlling stake to investors Eduardo Elsztain and Moti
Ben-Moshe. Dankner is appealing the decision.
IDB has holdings and investment in the financial, real-estate,
insurance and communications sectors.
At 0930 GMT, shares of Koor were up ILS0.62, or 0.86%, at
ILS72.80, and shares of IDB were up up ILS0.039, or 6.51%, at
ILS0.638, in a lower Tel Aviv market.
Write to Sara Toth Stub at realtimedesklondon@dowjones.com
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